The IT Indicators

Not taking measurements and indicators not only postpones problems, but gives us a false sense of what is happening. We have four reasons to monitor and measure what is done in the corporate world. They are: Validate Justify, Target and Intervene. This is one of the guidelines that are part of the library of best practices called ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library). This process helps measure the very process of defining goals and objectives, being operational, tactical or strategic.

Measuring what? For example, an indicator of the financial situation of the subareas of IT or the IT field as a whole, indicator of the status of employee satisfaction with the company, the atmosphere in the workplace, etc..

Defining what? The frequency measurement indicator, setting targets to improve the indicator, the time to validate the indicator to allow time to make a preventive intervention, the process of verifying the effectiveness of the indicators, the definition of other sources of comparison that will be used.

Have a list of services that are provided, even including services that are not normally in an informal list. As is the case of services for solving questions of users concerning the use of systems or infrastructure, etc… It is therefore very important to have documented the complete service catalog provided by the IT. This brings a vision that helps a lot in the management of the area as a whole, and the service catalog is the list of important documents in the certification process.

Having the list, choose what priority or start by what is easiest to measure because having a low cost and not wasting effort, already helps to show that the information will help more than hinder. Do not worry at first with the tool but with what to measure and how to measure. After validating whether you need a tool, or first make a simple follow ups on a worksheet in Excel, no longer gives a better sense of what really needs to be automated and prioritized to be accompanied.

Some indicators that are widely used such as: satisfaction regarding attendance, number of types of service performed, number of visits made outside the time limit set, the amount of incidents that are pending from one week to another or from a month to another, more common types of incidents, amount of change in output per week amount of incidents generated by these changes, etc. Or budgeted vs. actual value of IT expenses, amount of resources x amount of calls, amounts of deliveries in the month, the average cost of projects, indicator of assertiveness term projects, amount of changes in scope of projects, etc..

Source: IT Experts